


Blankie Protocol

by ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi



Series: Tony's Protocols [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Couch Cuddles, F/M, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Light Angst, Parent Tony Stark, Peter is a Little Shit, Precious Peter Parker, Short & Sweet, Sleepwalking, Sleepy Cuddles, Sleepy Peter Parker, Sweet, Thunderstorms, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, mentions of it at least, sensory overload (almost)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-11-25 18:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18169799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi/pseuds/ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi
Summary: The third stage of sleep, also known as deep NREM sleep, is the deepest stage of sleep within the cycle. It's difficult for one to be woken or disturbed during this stage of sleep because of this. Stage three is the sleep cycle stage in which parasomnias such assleepwalking, sleep talking, and night terrors are prone to occur.________________________Days such as this were rather draining for Peter, and from the moment he woke up for the eighth time to what, for him, was an ear-piercing clap of thunder, he’d already felt exhausted. Insistent that he was fine, a little mind-over-matter sort of thing, the teen had practically dragged himself out of bed and into the kitchen to get himself something to eat and some water.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, a sleepwalking prompt

Of course, of course, the day that there was a thunderstorm predicted was the day Peter was consistently on the verge of a sensory overload. That was his kind of luck-- the storm wouldn’t have happened on any other day, obviously. At least it was the weekend, so there was no having to try to push through the school day with all the bright lights and obnoxiously loud sounds. Plus, it was all on one of the weekends where May and Tony had agreed that Peter could go up to the Tower or Compound, so while the teen was upset that he wasn’t able to get any lab time in, it could be far worse. At least here, there was a better chance of things being dim and quiet.

Days such as this were rather draining for Peter, and from the moment he woke up for the eighth time to what, for him, was an ear-piercing clap of thunder, he’d already felt exhausted. Insistent that he was fine, a little mind-over-matter sort of thing, the teen had practically dragged himself out of bed and into the kitchen to get himself something to eat and some water.

Tony had found Peter a half an hour later sitting at the kitchen island with his forehead pressed down against the counter, the lights in the room shut off, and a straw going from a glass of water on the kid’s lap up to his mouth. Thankfully, a hand was holding onto said glass. Immediately after seeing the kid in this state, Tony knew what was wrong and made his way over to the medicine cabinet to grab Peter some extra-strength Tylenol. The flinch the boy made after he must’ve shut the cabinet too loudly only reinforced his query on what the problem was.

“Hey there, bud,” Tony spoke as softly as he could, sitting down beside Peter and gently placing the two medicine tablets down next to him. “Head hurting you?”

A little, soft groan was the only response from Peter.

“Thought so,” the older man nodded. “Got you some of the strong shit, it should at least help a little.”

Yet another grumble, but this time, Tony could vaguely make out the word _’thanks’_ from it.

“‘Course. Anything you, uh, need?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“You sure, kid? You’re not bothering me if you want something.” That had always seemed to be a worry of Peter’s.

“‘M ‘kay. Pr’mise.”

“Alright, I’ll take your word for it.”

As Peter slowly, almost painfully slowly, moved the two tablets into his mouth, Tony made himself some coffee. It hurt to see the kid in as much pain as he was, but the man couldn’t help but be thankful that the monster of a headache and queasy stomach Peter must have was all it was. Yeah, it’d be better if he wasn’t hurting at all, but beggars can’t be choosers-- especially with how much trouble Peter gets himself in. It was almost as if he had to choose between Spidey-problems and Petey-problems. At least with Petey-problems, there usually wasn’t any risk of someone, usually the teen himself, getting seriously injured.

“Hey, kiddo,” Tony whispered, placing his free hand not holding a coffee cup on the teen’s shoulder. “Can’t imagine sitting all hunched here at the counter is too comfortable, eh? Why don’t we move over to the sofa or something? You can actually lay down there and not screw up your back.”

“M’kay,” Peter mumbled, lifting his head up off of the counter now, but his eyes still tightly shut. The kid looked exhausted, and there were bags under his eyes to rival Tony’s own. God, did he get any actual sleep last night? Peter opened his eyes just enough to stand up from the little barstool-like chair going to go put his empty water glass in the dishwasher before Tony gently took it from his hands and set it aside on the counter. He could put it away later-- right now, Stark just needed to get Peter to rest. He would’ve dragged the kid’s ass back to bed if it weren’t for the fact that he’d get pissed off and try to sneak out of his room or be ‘productive’. Sometimes, he was like a child-- refusing to go to sleep simply because he seemingly didn’t want to be left out or whatever.

Maybe May could’ve gotten Peter to stay in bed, but Tony just went along with his _‘I’m fine’_ act. For the most part, of course.

Tony led Peter out of the kitchen, past the main living room, and down the hall to a smaller one with a long sofa running along the wall with cushions as soft as a Tempurpedic mattress. There was still a television and the same crap that’s in the regular living room in this particular one, but the difference is that this had been ‘spidey-fied’ and was really only used when Peter’s senses were bothering him more than usual. It had blackout curtains, carpeted floors so there weren’t any loud steps, plenty of cushions and pillows to rival the comfort of some of the beds, and most importantly, soundproof walls so the outside world wasn’t any bother once the door shut. Besides FRIDAY over the speakers, no sound got in. Occasionally, Tony would mute her when he and Peter were spending the day in here so that way her sudden announcements wouldn’t either disturb him, wake him if he was able to sleep, or startle him if he was groggy or something like that. It was something that Tony liked to think of it as the _”Blankie Protocol”_ because you couldn’t disturb the li’l spider-baby when he had his blankie and trying to take his nap, now could you? It was illegal, in Tony’s mind. Said protocol was activated now as he helped Peter get set up on the sofa. If there was an emergency, of course, it would be overridden, but besides that, all messages were sent to Tony’s phone or tablet he used for work.

Peter laid across the furniture, and a soft and fuzzy blanket laid across him. Tony took a pillow out from inside a little ottoman, lightly lifting up the teen’s head to slip it underneath. He sat down beside where the boy laid his head, running a hand through his curls. Peter’s face was buried into the pillow, his way of snuffing out any of the little bit of light left in the room even though the overhead lights off.

The kid looked like, well, a little kid fast asleep like that. Sure, Tony hated that he was in pain, but he couldn’t say that part of him didn’t enjoy taking care of Peter. Then again, there was also the little part of his brain nagging at him to put distance between himself and Peter like he tried to at first, not wanting to fuck the kid up. He wasn’t Tony’s, so he had to stop thinking like that. Starks don’t make good fathers, so why the hell would he be any different? Besides, potentially screwing Peter up would be the biggest disrespect to Ben and Peter’s father, the two men who’d been in the male parental figure position in the teen’s life and whose shoes Tony knew deep down he was trying to fill to the best of his abilities.

But Peter didn’t need some old man’s-- the kid gave him some gray hairs, he was officially old-- internal ramblings right now, as though Tony’s worries were being outwardly projected. Today, the spider-boy just needed peace and quiet, and most importantly, a lot of rest. Tony soothingly ran his fingers through Peter’s messy head of curls with one hand whilst the other held his phone as he read through a mix of the news and the most reliable and recently updated articles on how to help someone through a sensory overload. Had he read most of these before? Yes. Did that stop Tony from rereading and looking for new sources each time Peter had a day like this? Not a chance.

Whilst he read, the phone screen that had had the articles up was replaced with a sweet picture Pepper and Peter, both dressed up for a Stark Industries event, and a ringing phone icon. Said phone was on silent, yes, but the little buzzing noise it made when it was vibrating still seemed to disturb Peter, as he had begun to stir. Tony stood up, shushing the boy once or twice as he did to try and get him back to sleep, before stepping out of the room, shutting the door behind him so none of the noise from this call would slip into the other room.

“Hey, Pep,” Tony answered the video call. “Everything okay?”

“Mhm,” Came her voice through the little speaker. “Just wondering if you have that paperwork I gave you last week done. You did it, right?”

Shit. He totally forgot.

“Yeah, ‘course I did,” He lied through his teeth. “When did you say you needed those, by the way?”

“This afternoon, Tony,” Pepper answered, not believing for a second that the man on the other end of the call even started it. “Four-fifteen, to be exact. If you didn’t start it, _hypothetically_ , you could still get it to me by the deadline if you started now. And if you didn’t get distracted, it might only take you an hour or two. But that’s only a hypothetical.”

“Obviously it is,” She had that look, she totally knew. “And I’ll get them to you by then.”

“Thank you, and good luck,” The CEO smiled a little. “So, how’s Peter? What are the two of you up to today?”

“It’s going to be a quiet day for our friendly neighborhood spider-boy,” Tony replied, glad to have changed topics.

“Is he okay?”

“He’s okay, don’t worry. Kid’s just a little more sensitive to everything today.”

“Poor kid,” She frowned. “Make sure he rests now, okay?”

“He’s passed out on the sofa right now.”

“Good, good,” Tony might’ve been irresponsible with a lot of things, but when it came to Peter, he could be pretty mature. “Let him know I said ‘hi’, I have to get back to work.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Don’t forget the paperwork, Tony.”

“I won’t.”

“Four-fifteen.”

“I know.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too, bye.”

“Bye.”

As the call ended, Tony stowed his phone in his pocket and poked his head back into the room where Peter slept peacefully. The kid seemed like he wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon, so he’d be alright for the few minutes in took to get downstairs to the lab and grab the papers and get back up here. Tony closed the door once again, stopping in the kitchen to put Peter’s water glass from earlier in the sink really quick before going to the elevator. It took him down two floors to where his lab was, where Tony had to briefly search before finding the slim folder filled with awfully tedious Stark Industries paperwork. He took it in his hand and made his way back over to the elevator. He backtracked to the lab before it could get to his floor in order to grab a pen to fill the sheets out, but as he was walking back down the hall to the metal doors, the lights in the Tower suddenly cut out.

It was probably just a blown generated as a result from the storm, Tony reasoned. Something like that, at least. Still, the man couldn’t help feeling a knot of worry in his stomach from being away from Peter. Tony was fairly use to attempts on his life being made, especially since he first became Iron Man, and knew that people like that were ruthless and willing to strike at any given moment. He had the right to be paranoid about this.

“FRIDAY, talk to me,” Tony called out. She should still be online. “What’s with the power outage?”

**”It seems as though lightning from the storm struck a powerline outside,”** The AI answered. **”I can get the power running again from the generator in a few minutes.”**

Just a few minutes, it was fine. It was only the storm, nothing bad was happening. “Alright, good,” Tony said, mostly to himself though. “Is Peter still asleep?” The thunder outside was fairly loud still, but even though the power was _temporarily_ out, the sound shouldn’t be getting in there to him.

**”Yes, Mister Parker is in stage two of the sleep cycle, and seemingly about to enter the third. It’s likely he’ll stay asleep until fully rested.”**

So, he was just stressing for no reason then. Well, what was really new?

Just as FRIDAY had told him, the power was back up and running in only three minutes. Tony stepped into the elevator as it arrived, and stepped out just as quickly. Yeah, of course Tony knew that Peter was perfectly safe, but that kid could probably get himself in just as much trouble asleep as he could awake. How? Well, Tony didn’t exactly want to find out. He just wanted to get back onto that cloud-like sofa, stroke his kid’s hair, and get this damn paperwork done.

But Peter wasn’t on the sofa.

Tony quickly rounded to the front of the furniture to see if the teen had merely just rolled off and onto the floor, but he hadn’t. Alright, calm down, he thought. He might just have gotten up to go to the bathroom or something. No reason to panic. Just check with FRI. “I thought you said Peter shouldn’t wake up anytime soon.”

**”I did,”** FRIDAY replied. **”And he hasn’t. Mister Parker is still in a deep sleep.”**

“Then where the hell is he?” His voice raised. “How could he have just fucking disappeared if he didn’t wake up to move himself? Is there someone in the fucking Tower?”

**”I don’t detect any intruders. The only people on your private floors are you and Mister Parker.”**

“FRIDAY, where is my kid? I need an answer now.”

The AI hesitated.

“I’m not getting any younger. Probably getting more grey hairs, actually.”

**”I’m unable to determine Mister Parker’s exact location at the moment. He’s not being picked up on my sensors, but his heat signature tells that he is still in the building and nearby. Actually, he’s between the floors of the one you are currently on and the one below it, though he seems to be changing his course now.”**

“How the fuck is he between floors?” Tony swore his voice went up an octave. Did he not just stress how he didn’t want to know how Peter could get himself into shit while asleep?

**”I suspect that he--”**

“He what?”

**”He-- the walls-- sir, I-- there’s-- Mister Parker-- got into-- tamporin--”**

“FRIDAY?” Now Tony definitely had a reason to feel stressed. “FRIDAY, status report.”

The power went out once again, but this time, FRIDAY was offline and unable to feed him live updates. Whatever Peter got into now, Tony was going to kill him for scaring the shit out of him like this. After, of course, he tracks his sorry spider-ass down, makes sure there’s no danger, and fixes this power mess with FRIDAY. Now, if this could be at all considered a silver lining, Tony understood the whole mother’s adrenaline thing-- he was ready to rip the damn floorboards up to see where and how the hell Peter got to where he was, wherever that may be.

God, there were too many unanswered questions, and this creepy-ass horror movie shit going on was _not_ helping his heart problems.


	2. Chapter 2

It had taken Peter a while to fall back asleep with all his senses screaming at him and trying to pound their way through his skull, but when he had, it’d been an absolute relief. Something that helped surprisingly a lot, however, were the fingers running through his hair. Pounding headache aside, that nearly immediately lured him to sleep. 

 

Peter stayed peacefully asleep while Tony worked, only moving to switch his head from one side to the other every now and then. He did, however, stir a bit when he heard and felt rhythmic vibrations from Tony’s side of the couch. It didn’t last too long, but there was a shift in weight in the furniture that came with the silence, along with the hair caresses ceasing. Still, Peter remained asleep, and therefore wasn’t consciously aware that Tony had left. He also wasn’t consciously aware that he was missing the other, nor of the feeling that something just… wasn’t right. Not exactly danger, per se, but just not right.

 

Still slumbering like a Disney Princess, Peter sat up, the blanket rolling off of him and onto the floor. “Mmmis’er Star’?” he mumbled with a slur, spinning in a little circle. His eyes fluttered a little, just barely opened, and the spiderling began to lethargically make his way to and out the door of their little mini living room. 

 

Peter’s walking path wasn’t exactly what one would call straight-- it was anything but that, honestly. Resembling a drunk who had gotten pulled over, Peter veered from side to side, and sometimes even walked up on the walls, across the ceiling, down the other wall, and then back down onto the floor where people without spider-powers walked. The boy came to a halt when everything went completely silent, including the annoying vibrations that constantly ran through the floors and walls. Normally, electrical vibrations didn’t bother him or weren’t even noticeable. Today, however, they felt like pins and needles pricking at his skin.  A loud thunderclap caused Peter to crouch down and cover his ears with a childish whine. “Make i’ stop, please…” He’d whined, but after a few moments of letting his nausea subside, Peter was standing up normally and searching for Tony once more. 

 

After searching this floor, or the rooms nearby him at least, with no sign of his pseudo father, Peter made his way to the elevator. When he pressed the button and nothing happened, the boy took it upon himself to pry the door open and then crawled along the inside wall. Just them, the horrific electric vibrations returned, causing the sleeping spider to wince and grow frustrated. But, even in his sleep, Peter was as stubborn as ever and took a detour. 

 

Said detour led Peter up and into the electrical maintenance room. Inside, there was the electrical box, generator, many sensors and circuits belonging to FRIDAY, and much more machinery. Each was practically ringing with buzz, and each made Peter want to claw and tear at his own skin. Or brake something. 

 

He went with the latter.  

 

It wasn’t unusual for Peter to sleep with or walk around, both now in this case, with his web shooters on-- it was a comfort thing, and no one really mentioned it-- so it wasn’t too odd for him to be wearing them now. “Web,” he mumbled, words still quite the jumbled mess. “Web beb, no… web med beb. No… Sparky, taser. Taser webs!” With a few quick bolts onto the machines, the room was silent once more, as was the rest of the building. The sleeping spider almost sighed in relief as he left the room, satisfied with a job well done.

 

Back to the original mission: finding Tony.

 

Peter made his way out of the electrical maintenance room and then back up the elevator shaft he’d previously climbed down. He went up to the floor he’d last felt Tony on, but after not hearing any of his movements, continued up two floors. The elevator door wasn’t open from when he had pried it open before, so as he crouched on the shaft’s walls, Peter pushed it open like it was an everyday sliding door. Considering the heavy metal, it was surprisingly quiet.  Peter crawled out the top of the elevator opening and up onto the ceiling, then proceeding past the kitchen, and towards the hallway.

 

The sleepwalking-- or sleep-crawling in this case-- spiderling made his across the hallway ceiling silently, following the vibrations he could feel in the walls from Tony walking and the occasional muttering sound. Peter went undetected by the older man, the only noise coming from him being a soft snoring that Tony didn’t notice in his stressed state. 

 

“Can’t I just have one nice day?” Tony muttered, unaware that the person causing him such stress and worry was stalking him almost like prey. “Doesn’t even have to be  _ ’nice’ _ , just quiet. Boring. Uneventful. Is that so much to ask for? I’d like to think I’ve done enough good to deserve that, right? Well,   _ apparently not. _ ”

 

Soon enough, Peter was positioned right above Tony and stopped in his tracks. He seemed to wait a few moments before lethargically raising his left hand and carefully shooting the web to the center of the man’s back. “ _ Thwip, _ ” he imitated to sound of the web shooters as he made his shot.

 

At first, Tony nearly jumped a foot in the air as he was unsure of what, or who, this was. However, before he could do anything drastic in order to defend himself, he felt a gentle tug from the owner of whatever sticky substance hit his back.    
  
“Mis’er Tony,” said substance owner mumbled sleepily. 

 

_ You’ve got to be shitting me _ , Tony thought and sighed with relief aloud. He took a few steps backwards, then turned around to see the web attached to him leading up and connecting to the wrist of his now found kid. The boy hung off the ceiling now, suspended in the air by a separate web, which caused his oversized ‘borrowed’ grey MIT shirt, that was actually Tony’s, to bunch up around his chest and exposing most of Peter’s stomach. His navy blue, fuzy sweatpants also bunched up, of course, around the knees, and his messy brown curls hung loosely while a few jutted out every which way. His big, brown eyes remained mostly shut, but occasionally, they’d flutter a little.  As much as Tony wanted to be mad at Peter for scaring him like that, not only was he not even consciously doing any of this, but the kid looked absolutely adorable and he couldn’t resist taking a picture. 

 

“So, this is where you ran off to,” Tony spoke softly, removing the webs from his person after stowing his phone. “What were you doing, kiddo? Trying to give me a heart attack? It almost worked, y’know. What would you have done then?”

 

“Tryin’ t’ find you,” Sleeping Peter answered. 

 

“I was gone for less than five minutes.”

 

“Missed you. I didn’t like you gone.”

 

Wow, okay. So  _ maybe _ he had gotten a little soft since the kid came around, because that made Tony melt into a puddle right then and there.

 

“Well, I don’t plan on leaving you again anytime soon,” Tony assured, rubbing Peter’s arm. “Now c’mon, let’s get you down from there. You’re making me nervous.”

 

Peter wordlessly lowered himself a little more, nudged Tony’s shoulder to tell him to turn around, and then proceed to attach himself onto the man’s back like a little human-spider-koala. 

 

That was a comparison Tony never thought he’d make.

 

“You’re unbelievable, Pete,” He sighed as the kid let his head fall against his shoulder. “I’m going to guess you’re somehow behind this power outage and why FRI isn’t online.” Tony started walking them back to their private living room. 

 

“‘Lectric buzz b’thered me. ‘T’s the v’brations,” Peter explained, words slurred.

 

“Of course it did,” Peter was that sensitive? Shit, Tony had his work cut out for him to make sure  _ electrical vibrations _  weren’t going to disturb him anymore. “You’ll just have to deal with them for the rest of the day, Mister Pretentious. I can only do so much sitting down with you.”

 

No answer.

 

“Pete?”

 

Peter’s response came in the form of light snoring, and all Tony could do was smile. This kid might’ve gotten into the weirdest shit sometimes, but truthfully, Tony wouldn’t have it any other way. It was all just apart of what made the kid, his kid, so special. 

 

He got the kid settled back on the sofa, but he latched onto him like an octopus still. Though the kid was laying across him, Tony was able to sit up still, but it had to be long ways to support the kid’s clinginess. Once again, the man snapped a quick picture and sent it over to May. They may or may not have had their own little trade of pictures like this, especially baby pictures on May’s end. He could get his paperwork for Pepper done,  _ and turned in _ , in a bit-- sharing Peter’s cuteness was more important at the moment. She’d understand.   
  


* * *

 

**[M Parker & T Stark CHAT-- 01:13PM]**

 

**T Stark:** [Attachment: IMG] 

So, is he always this clingy? I don’t remember signing up for it.

 

**M Parker:** You signed up for this when you invited him over. You can’t say that you’re not loving it.

 

**T Stark:** I have no idea what you’re talking about

 

**M Parker:** Mhm, sure.

Is he feeling alright?? He usually only gets like that when he’s not feeling top notch

 

**T Stark:** Kid has a pretty bad headache, but alright otherwise. 

Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it

 

**M Parker:** I’m sure you are.    
If you need any Peter-care help, just say the word

 

**T Stark:** I’ll keep that in mind.

Actually, do you know anything about him sleepwalking?

 

**M Parker:** Sleepwalking? He hasn’t done that in years

 

**T Stark:** Well, it seems like that’s happening again. 

I swear, he’s trying to stop my heart

 

**M Parker:** My best advice, honestly, is just to go along with whatever he does and try to get him to lay back down

 

**T Stark:** I can’t like strap him down or anything?

 

**M Parker:** You could, but I don’t really recommend it

 

**T Stark:** Wonderful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, lads and lassies (and all y'all pals in between)!  
> Well, this has been one of my favorite things to write. Hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I did!  
> \- <3 Samuel  
> ( Tumblr & Instagram: ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi )

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, lads and lassies (and all y'all pals in between)!  
> Instead of working on my list of prompts, I keep just working on random new ones that pop into my head. Oh well  
> \- <3 Sam  
> (Tumblr & Instagram: ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi )


End file.
